Museum calls on public to help solve mystery of rare quilt

Conservators at the National Museum Australia have a mystery on their hands. And to solve it, they need the public's help.

The challenge is to identify the people behind the names artfully embroidered onto a rare "autograph quilt". The names of Melbourne's 19th century celebrities are among them, but researchers have so far only been able to identify 50 of the 650 names sewn onto the quilt.

Made up of 774 panels, 650 squares contain a signature, name, monogram or initial. Other panels have been embellished with pictures of everything from birds, insects and flowers to crucifixes and ladders, boats and anchors and even a self-portrait of a man with a mustache wearing a beret.

"This is the only 19th-century autograph quilt we are aware of in a public collection in Australia," National Museum Australia senior curator Martha Sear said.

In attempting to unlock the secrets of the quilt, the National Museum Australia has uploaded a picture of the quilt as well as a transcription of the names, initials and motifs which have been embroidered in yellow, white, grey and brown thread.

Dr Sear said the quilt, which was produced as a fundraiser for St Mary's Church of England in Sunbury, would have taken years to make. Donors purchased squares for a shilling each and their names were sewn onto the fabric. Almost £40 was raised towards a £400 church organ.

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The 50 names identified so far reveal connections made via the global missionary network between Melbourne's establishment and London, the Pacific Islands, South Africa - even China.

Among them are the former Victorian Governor John Hopetoun, a Scotsman who went on to become Australia's first Governor-General, and legal identity Sir Thomas a Beckett. But the identity of the vast majority of donors is still a mystery.

"We would love it if anyone could solve the mystery of how the names of Ethiopian slaves who were picked up by the British navy in the Red Sea in the 1880s and taken to South Africa ended up having their names embroidered onto the quilt," Dr Sear said.

The fine needlework wasn't necessarily the work of the person who signed the quilt. Instead, the quilt was made by genteel ladies who belonged to a needle group and often came together to sew for the poor and to make goods such as bags, hats and slippers to raise money for a church or charity.

"The ladies in philanthropist Lady Janet Clarke's circle would have been the upper elite of Melbourne," Dr Sear said. "But the names of people who appear on the quilt wouldn't have been of that elevated level."

In 1895, the quilt was then sold as part of a Coburg church's bazaar to raise funds for Australian missionaries caught up in the Kucheng Massacre in China. In October 1896 it was displayed at the Warragul Presbyterian church fate.

"But that's where the trail goes dead," Dr Sear said. "We think by then it went into private hands."

Conservators are hoping that the significance and unique nature of the quilt will prompt the public to get in touch with information. The quilt can be seen in detail, including the names, initials and motifs via the National Museum Australia website.